Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes heeding every leaf, and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed over the long moor, reckless whether seen or not. But only once the other man turned and looked back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp behind me.
Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as ride he might, I saw that he had something on the horse in front of him, something which needed care, and stopped him from looking backward. In the whirling of my wits I fancied first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been through fell across my hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of a tragedy. Rushing there through crag and quag at utmost speed of a maddened horse, as of another's fate, calmly (as on canvas laid), the brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold despair.
The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven Rocks. But, as Carver entered it, he turned round and beheld me not a hundred yards behind; and I saw that he was bearing his child, little Ensie, before him. Ensie also descried me, and stretched his hands and cried to me; for the face of his father frightened him.
Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging horse, and laid one hand on a pistol stock, whence I knew that his slung carbine has received no bullet since the one that had pierced Lorna. And a cry of triumph rose from the black depths of my heart. What cared I for pistols? I had no spurs, neither was my horse one to need the rowel; I rather held him in than urged him, for he was fresh as ever; and I knew that the black steed in front, if he breasted the steep ascent, where the track divided, must be in our reach at once.
His rider knew this, and, having no room in the rocky channel to turn and fire, drew rein at the crossways sharply, and plunged into the black ravine leading to the Wizard's Slough.
"Is it so?" I said to myself, with brain and head cold as iron; "though the foul fiend come from the slough to save thee, thou shalt carve it, Carver."
I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely—for I had him as in a pitfall, whence no escape might be. He thought that I feared to approach him, for he knew not where he was; and his low, disdainful laugh came back.
"Laugh he who wins," thought I.
A gnarled and half-starved oak, as stubborn as my own resolve, and smitten by some storm of old, hung from the crag above me. Rising from my horse's back, although I had no stirrups, I caught a limb, and tore it (like a mere wheat-awn) from the socket. Men show the rent even now with wonder—none with more wonder than myself.
Carver Doone turned the corner suddenly on the black and bottomless bog; with a start of fear he reigned back his horse, and I thought he would have turned upon me. Upon this he made up his mind; and, wheeling, fired, and then rode at me.